


Bloodstained Hands

by SereneSorrow



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 18:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SereneSorrow/pseuds/SereneSorrow
Summary: The mark that soulmates share defines their partnership, and dreams can explain so much, but none of that can explain as much as common sense and conversation can. Unfortunately some people don't know what questions they should be asking.(more warnings in the notes)





	Bloodstained Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the second of three versions of the same idea I had, but the other two would have been multi-chapters and I had originally hoped to have this finished for UraIchi Week... missed that but it's finished now so YAY! Now read it and be sad. :( :D
> 
> WARNINGS: blood, death, killing people, dismembering corpses.

The corpse is only seconds old, laid out in a growing puddle of blood that is only just seeping into the tips of short strands of hair. A glance at his gloved hands as he tucks the weapon away and he takes a breath, the rust grating over his tongue even through the filter of his mask. A moment to let the adrenaline cool, then it's on to the cleanup.

The blade cuts through flesh and tissue cleanly but bone is stronger. It's a chore to pare it down to so many pieces but he doesn't let frustration seep in. The job will be done, no matter how long it takes.

Everything is silent as he works, the home empty and shrouded in the night's shadows. There is no need to rush, no sight or sound escaped, no one is coming to investigate. He knows his work well and has left no sign of his presence.

Soon enough the parts are spread out before him, all the pieces of a complex puzzle. One that he has studied in endless hours of fascination. Not many know the intricate inner workings of a body as well as he doesand he knows well that in this he is far beyond many of his peers.

It is not the direction he wishes he could apply his study to, there is so much more he could do with this knowledge but he knows his place. His hands are needed here, in the red. He won't disappoint his lady, or fail in the expectations she has for him. He will make her proud and perhaps the whispers that her attentions are misplaced in him will cease.

***

The shrill cry splits the air for the third time that night. With an inaudible groan Shiba Isshin drags himself out of bed, laying a hand on his wife's shoulder to keep her there, she needs more rest. Their son isn't far, usually the servant's would take him to another room but Masaki had insisted on keeping him close when she realized he woke screaming every. single. night. He doesn't know if she was more worried about the servants or their son, possibly both, with how tired Aiko-chan looked every day when she brought their son to her.

Isshin isn't sure that he'll be able to get Ichigo back to sleep, he doesn't seem to have any talent for it, but Masaki can't keep staying up all night if she is just going to watch over him all day as well.

Covering a yawn as he looks down at his son Isshin wonders if this is normal colic. This is his first child and he has never spent as much time with the youngest of his clan, not even in his own youth as there was always too much to discover and learn, and then later training took up so much of his time.

_'What kind of nightmares can a few month's old baby have?'_ He thinks to himself with worry for his son. Picking up the boy he notes the tears streaming down his bright red face and wipes them away before he starts rocking the boy in his arms.

***  
***

Struggling in the dark, trying not to let haste overcome caution before the job is done. There is a time limit, and too much noise will only speed up the clock by drawing attention. Bad enough that nothing has gone according to plan so far tonight.

With this kind of blunt blade as the only tool available, separating the joint in the shoulder is easier than the hip but more difficult than the knee or elbow. A more precise instrument would have been preferable, but he was improvising now and what he had to work with was the wrong set of tools. Not that difficulty matters for anything other than the number of minutes it will take to get the body entirely disassembled. He only has so much time for the cleanup before he has to be away from here. The wrong tools will just have to do the job.

***

The picnic was a good idea, it's bright outside but not too hot today, and Masaki can tell that Ichigo is curious about the grass and the flowers and the butterflies. He keeps reaching out to touch them, just like every other child Masaki has spent time watching over for her family and her friends. Her son isn't any different, just as bright eyed and curious as any child and she doesn't have a problem yelling at anyone who says differently. As long as her yelling doesn't upset her precious son, she wouldn't take away a single moment of his happiness. There never seem to be enough of those moments as it is.

He has night terrors every time he sleeps, and no one in the Shiba clan has any explanation for it. They have never seen such a thing to such an intense degree in someone so young, and with Ichigo's limited vocabulary at his young age it has been impossible to glean any detail about his dreams from talking to him about them.

With a sigh Masaki shakes off those thoughts and looks back at her son with a smile. He seems to like catching the butterflies but he always crushes them, and then he has a strange look on his face like maybe he doesn't know quite what happened, or maybe it is that he expected something different even though she's tried to show him how to hold them more carefully. At first Masaki feared he was going to start crying, he cries over the strangest things, but he never does. He just keeps trying to catch the butterflies... no matter that it's always the same result.

She has a hard time feeding him the little pieces of fruit she brought for a snack but he sits still enough for her when she smiles and he grabs at her hair instead of the insects until she turns him lose again. She enjoys days like today the most, especially when Isshin escapes his captain duties in the tenth division to join them and their little family gets to have lunch together on a perfect summer day. Ichigo hasn't cried once since the tears that woke him up early this morning.

***  
***

Training the new recruits is a chore. He chafes at having to hold himself back, but he'll damage them beyond use if he doesn't. Remarkably, some of them actually have the tiniest bit of potential, and he knows his duty well enough not to break valuable resources. Moving through a basic series of blocks and strikes he represses a scowl at the mistakes he sees arrayed before him, his face the same expressionless mask as always. He makes corrections patiently, explaining the mistakes even though his own teachers didn't always. If he's going to be stuck training these rookies then he doesn't want to have to take on any more of them than he has to. The sooner he's finished with this crop the sooner he can take another mission and prove his value all over again to his lady and all those who still say that he is not worth her time or notice.

At least the movements, once the recruits can get them down correctly, are a calming rhythm that he can lose himself in for a few moments. His mind is never _still_, but this is as close to it as he can come these days.

It gives him time to think on one of his side projects or whatever new area of study has caught his eye, or more and more frequently in the last few decades the increase in dreams of his past missions. He has never been one to dwell on the targets, or to let the 'why' of his missions slow him down. If his orders weren't important then they wouldn't _be_ orders and he is determined not to fall into such an obvious trap and lose _her_ respect. He isn't even entirely sure how he earned it in the first place and he _won't_ do anything to let her down.

***

Sometimes he actually gets _tired_ of seeing the red everywhere. The patches and puddles and slashes and drips that overlay everyone he sees, everyone that brings him food to eat and the few toys they want him to play with. Ka-san and tou-san and the little ones, _sisters_, they show to him sometimes. Maybe tired isn't the right word for how he feels. He gets fidgety, restless, he just needs to _move_.

That's another thing he sees in his dreams, _how _to move. When he thinks he might be doing it wrong, when it feels wrong, he thinks back to the way his sensei corrected the others and adjusts as best as he can. They all look older than he is, but he can do it too, he'll prove it. He knows sensei is disappointed with the others, but _he_ won't be like them.

There are _other_ sensei's that come to see him sometimes. They say that tou-san sends them and that tou-san wants him to learn things with paper covered in black lines. The small shapes aren't much like the big picture things on paper that sensei sometimes shows him, the ones that show how things fit together and work and what is inside of them. He doesn't like the _other_ sensei's lessons, he tears up the paper and bites the _other_ sensei's when then try to stop his hands. He used to grab them back but last time he heard the crunchy pop that sensei taught him to listen for and the _other_ sensei ran away making a lot of loud noise. He felt bad that he let the man cause a racket like that, sensei taught him that was dangerous because it would alert others. He felt worse when tou-san came himself, like he almost never does anymore, and said things to him about _not_ doing the things that sensei taught him. The _other_ sensei never came back so he couldn't try again anyway. There were fewer _other_ senseis after that, but they still tried to teach him strange, confusing things, and ka-san started to act like them when she visited too.

His _real_ sensei though, the one he never tells anyone about, _his_ lessons aren't confusing. Not like that, even if he has a hard time learning it's never so impossible. Like when his _real_ sensei shows him that watching the others move makes it easier to keep moving himself, so he _always_ pictures his _real_ lessons when he practices, the same way sensei does. It lets his mind drift without settling on anything solid, and he can be sure that he won't be distracted by the other lessons. The ones where sensei shows him the things inside everyone that are all different colors of red, the things that you can take out and hide in different places so that no one can find them all. He likes those lessons too, but then he thinks of them when he sees ka-san and he doesn't like it anymore... but then he sees the way other people look at him and he wants to see the things inside them, and hide them from everyone that makes ka-san look angry.

He wants to be _just_ like sensei, just as strong and just as fast, like when sensei shows him how to catch people. Most times it's someone who's running away or doesn't know that sensei is there, but sometimes it's someone strong that sensei shows him how to fight, and he gets scared that sensei won't win but he _always_ does. He wants to be that good too, he wants to be able to turn _everyone_ red, even the really strong ones that think they can turn _him_ red.

Ichigo _really_ wants to be strong for his sensei.

***  
***

The room is bare, but once upon a time it was made of good materials. Now the walls are covered in gouges and scratches, the floor is scuffed and worn with constant use. There is nothing frivolous or decorative in the room, really nothing but bedding, threadbare and in desperate need of a thorough wash.

Kisuke feels unsettled, he _knows_ that he's dreaming but he has no idea where he is. He never dreamed much as a child, and even after he joined the Onmitsukidō he didn't have the bad dreams that some of his colleagues did. Not until a few decades ago when some of his more distinctive missions began coming back to him in perfect clarity, and he worried why his mind was recalling his greatest successes and worst failures. He always took another mission as soon as he could after one of these dreams, exhausting himself with back to back missions if he could to collapse into dreamless sleep. Whatever they were, he didn't want to risk allowing the dreams to compromise him.

In the usual course of his dreams of late he would recall his most recent mission but with a heavy overtone of stress, as though he was fighting his own body to restrain himself from just rushing ahead. When he did inevitably find his target the blood would always become the most vivid part of the moment, as though everything in the dream would slow down just to allow him to watch the creeping inexorable flow of the target's life draining away.

That is how this dream started, but his most recent mission was an important one, multiple high profile targets. A family of some importance based on the look of their home. His mission details hadn't said just who they were, that sort of thing was never relevant to his ability to carry out the mission. All he knew was that the heir's couldn't be allowed to continue the work that their father had begun, and so he had killed them all. It hadn't been _difficult_, but the wife had possessed some indefinable quality that reminded him of Yoruichi-sama and he had hesitated a moment as he crouched over her, watching the deep slash in her throat seep crimson onto the floorboards.

That was the moment this dream changed. The unfamiliar room swimming into focus in a dizzying swirl of movement and a rush of unfamiliar sounds. A door opens in what seems like a blink but Kisuke has the feeling that more time has passed than he is aware of. A woman he's never seen before rushes inside, concern clear on her face even through the alternating blurriness and clarity of tears and a laser-like focus that draws his eyes directly to her every hint of motion. She's saying something as she approaches but his breath races in and out of his chest and every sound is garbled.

He's cataloguing her like a target. Noting the lack of weapons, the weaknesses in the way she stands as she leans down to get closer to him. He knows exactly the right instant to lunge but something holds him back for a moment. He doesn't know _why_ she's a target but that hesitation won't stop him, it doesn't.

A moment of movement as he launches himself forward and he has the feel of a knife, _-not one that Kisuke's familiar with, not one that he would have chosen-_, sliding down his sleeve and into his ready palm. Despite its unsuitability for the task the knife digs deep into flesh under the pressure behind it, catching on the tougher cords within that grate through the teeth of the blade as it's carving a ragged line through the woman's throat in mimicry of his earlier kill.

Her eyes fly wide in shock as blood sprays into his face and down both of their chests. His own weight as he barrels into her throws her backwards to the floor, and he lands over her, gaze locked on her face as blood splashes up over her chin to mar her expression and drip into her hair. Crimson flooding into waves of bright orange, so different than the shade of violet that had captivated Kisuke but still he freezes in shock at the sight, as though it is the most arresting vision there is.

He glances rapidly from her eyes to her throat, and his hands _-too small, not _his_ hands-_ come up to cover the wound as though that could stop the bleeding. Her eyes stare up at him steadily despite his own fluttering gaze and she mouths something to him, wordless. He can't make it out, but the look in her eyes doesn't say _fear_ or _terror_ or _betrayal_. No, there is pain, but there is also... _love_.

***

He never leaves the room now. Ka-san was the only one who took him outside, now she can't do that anymore. He still sees the red all over the floor, he doesn't know if it's _really_ there or not. He doesn't _think_ that tou-san would leave him here if it is, but tou-san never comes to see him. The little girls don't either.

The people who bring him food have weapons, so do the people that stand outside. He doesn't bother showing them that their weapons aren't enough to stop him from making them spill red all over the floor. Just like ka-san. He doesn't want their red to touch ka-san's either.

He doesn't like to eat when they put the food down on the red part of the floor, he always pushes the food away until they take it and leave. He doesn't have to look at the red spot, he doesn't have to trace its edge with his fingers, lay down beside it, stand over it, pace around it. He does. He likes remembering what she looked like, laying there in all that red. The way her hair got even darker and the way it speckled her skin.

Sometimes he wishes they hadn't come running and found her. He could have taken her apart and seen all the red pieces inside come out. He feels his chest tighten in excitement at the thought, his hands tremble with want, even though it feels like it is getting harder to breathe.

They took away his knife, it was so hard to find one too, and since he never leaves he can't find another one. His fingers twitch when he thinks about not being able to wrap them around a handle again. He wants out. He wants to make more red stains, more pieces out of wholes. He wants to go out. He wants to get out.

***  
***

Kyōraku-taicho and Ukitake-taicho follow him outside after his first captain's meeting, the one that had announced his promotion to the rest of the divisions. The sun is starting to set and the rest of the captains are heading off to their barracks after the long day, but those two keep pace with him for a few steps and he slows, prompting them to speak. They obviously have something they want to say.

“I'm sure you're looking forward to it, the day you meet them.” Kyōraku-taicho says with a smile. He must be assuming that Kisuke is an optimistic young man looking forward with excitement at the prospect of being a strong enough soul to merit a partner, a soulmate. Beside him Ukitake-taicho is smiling also, radiating a peaceful kind of joy as though nothing could be a better topic for conversation. Kisuke is amazed that there was a time he believed the two men's connection was anything but a soul bond.

_'How could I have been so foolish as to pass off stories of soul bonds as nothing more than fantasy?'_ He thinks to himself as the way the two men stand mirrored and balanced sinks in._ 'Why else would they both have two zanpakutō when no other in Seireitei does?'_ It seems entirely too obvious now.

Unwilling to spill his secrets to the older captains he ignores their overture. “Won't that be a terrible day.” Is all that Kisuke can say to them in response, with a wave of his white gloved right hand as he turns away, striding purposefully back towards his division to discourage questions.

With a familiar weight in his chest he ignores the two captains staring after him with some surprise as he leaves, lost in thought. It was so arbitrary, thinking back on it. Just an off-hand comment to Yoruichi-sama after his debriefing was over and she'd had time to speak to him. He always relished those moments, they had become fewer and fewer since her promotion to captain and he dearly missed the close relationship they'd had when they were younger, improper though it may have been for someone of such low circumstances as himself to consort with the princess.

He remembers what he said, how he said it. Still, he hadn't even thought of such a conclusion, whereas she had connected the dots right away. Looking at him as though he had suddenly become the fool she'd never believed him to be while he wondered if it was all just one of her jokes that he didn't understand.

_ “Kisuke... You're describing a soul bond.”_ She had said with a dreadful look on her usually gleeful face.

_“But that's just a myth, soulmates aren't real.”_ Kisuke had insisted with dubious skepticism at her assertion.

She had just blinked and stared at him for a moment, making him think back and reevaluate not only his words but every scarce scrap of information he had heard over his lifetime about soulmates. He hadn't heard a thing about them in his earliest childhood in the Rukon district, it wasn't until the Shihōin had taken him in that he had heard some ladies gossiping about novels on the subject as they passed by. Novels. Works of _fiction_.

_“It's not a story, it's proven fact. All of the strongest souls in Soul Society find their partner eventually. Captains and lieutenants and clan leaders all have soulmates.”_ She had explained with patience as though he might not understand simple words, the look in her eyes making him nervous.

_“You don't have a partner.”_ He'd been quick to point out, still uncertain if he should believe her.

_“Not yet, but neither does Hirako-taicho,”_ Yoruichi-sama had replied almost grimly, _“that doesn't make it a myth.”_

Hirako-taicho was one of the captains older than Yoruichi-sama, it was surprising that he had yet to find his own soulmate if they existed. Of course the most horrifying moment of that conversation for both of them had been the realization of the memory transfer. Soulmates, or soul-bonded partners, or whatever anyone wants to call them, always see the most defining moments of each other's lives in their dreams. The most intense experiences and the things that mean the most to them...

Yoruichi-sama means more to him than anyone else... she always has, but every other part of his life at the time... In all of that time, the pain and hunger of his days on the streets, the fear of his early Onmitsukidō training and the suffering he had dealt since...

There in her office, as he had looked down at his hands, he had recalled just how many people he had killed over the decades since his dreams had started changing. He had imagined he could actually see a red stain creeping over his right palm, welling up in a spreading ooze that almost seemed to bubble and splatter all at the same time. Yoruichi-sama's exclamation and the way she had nearly jumped out of her seat as she leaned forward for a closer look had proven that he wasn't imagining it. A red bloodstain had permanently inked itself across his hand, covering the entire palm and spreading halfway up his fingers with splattered drops on his fingertips and trailing lines just starting to arc up over his wrist. Yoruichi-sama confirmed that it was the matching mark that the 'myths' said he and his soulmate would share.

The mark he now keeps covered by wearing gloves at all times, he doubts that the other captains will be any more comfortable with him if they know that he is a former member of Onmitsukidō, if they know that he and his soulmate's relationship is defined by the blood they have spilled. Soulmarks aren't heavily advertised as it is, and as he often has to wear gloves while handling his experiments no one who sees him regularly seems to have given his habit of keeping his hands covered much thought anyway, so there is that at least for convenience. Yoruichi-sama had also been the one to ensure, though he didn't know the details of how, that his former position would remain a secret. Only the captain commander and the captains of squads four and six know where he had been assigned to work before his promotion, so at least he has a clean slate to start from, but whether his colleagues know or not he cannot forget for a moment the red stain on his hand.

He has had time to think it all through now, and he knows what it means that all of the memories he has received from his soulmate are his own memories echoed back to him. What he has done, the things that he has shown his soulmate, these memories have had more of an impact on his soulmate's life than anything else they have experienced. It is clear enough, that even after decades they haven't experienced anything nearly so profound on their own, that they are either the most self-disciplined monk or a child. It is almost certainly the latter. If the circumstantial evidence wasn't enough, the dream of the red-headed woman would have been. He had seen that look of love in the eyes of some of his more courageous targets when he had killed them in front of their children.

He feels the unfamiliar weight of guilt that had never affected him in any of the missions he has carried out and he has never been more ashamed of himself or his actions then he is now that he knows what he has done to the _child_ that was made to share his life, made to stand by his side.

***

Tou-san came to visit him for the first time in a long time. He isn't sure just how long that is, but tou-san looks really different. There is hair on his cheeks and chin and the rest of his hair is longer too. Now that ka-san is gone, when his hair gets long he always gets food that tastes like something sensei taught him puts people to sleep and then when he wakes up his hair is short again.

_'Does no one do that for tou-san?'_ He wonders briefly, before forgetting the thought entirely.

He sits next to the big bucket while the people fill it with water from the little buckets, and it's hard to stay still but tou-san wants him to pay attention, he keeps dragging him back around when he looks away or moves too much.

“You can't leave this room Ichigo! You had everyone very worried! I don't know how you got out but it's not right of you to just disappear like that!” Tou-san says and to him that doesn't sound right. Sensei taught him very clearly how to get in and out of places and the right way to disappear just about anywhere. He knows that he did it right.

“Those pigs belonged to your little cousin Ganju, and you shouldn't have made such a bloody mess of them like that. You nearly scared the kitchen girl to death when you came out of the vegetable patch and grabbed her garden knife. If the cook hadn't found her after she fainted into the weeds we might not have known to come looking for you for hours! What were you even doing when Raigou-san found you? Why were you so far away from the house?” Tou-san stares down at him and he stares back up, neck craned painfully far to see the shadows on tou-san's face.

He doesn't know why tou-san said most of those things, tou-san is strange. He knows that his sensei wouldn't teach him how to do something _wrong_. He killed the pigs just like sensei takes care of the noisy pets that know when he's there, and he herded the girl to the big pile of plants before he hit her on the head and he was very careful to hide all of the pieces of Aiko-chan before Raigou-san found him. He's sure that Raigou-san didn't find _any_ of them.

“I just don't understand why you do these bad things, it isn't right Ichigo.” Tou-san says, and he looks really tired.

He doesn't know why tou-san said that either. He is doing what sensei taught him, and besides, the pretty red color is supposed to come out of people and spread everywhere. It's not that he_ can't_ clean up after himself, he proved that by hiding Aiko-chan, but he just doesn't have all the things that sensei always caries with him to help clean up. He doesn't know where to find those things and he thinks that maybe that is a test.

He wonders at that for a moment. Staring off blankly and nibbling at his lips. _'Am I supposed to go find the tools that sensei uses so that I have them too?'_

Tou-san keeps saying odd things like that while the others take his red clothes away and put him in the big bucket. He squirms around when they scrub the red off of him and he tries to push their hands away from him, he only just got all of this red and they are taking it away and he doesn't _like _that. He is supposed to be covered in red, he knows he is! Just like his sensei, there should be red all over him. Tou-san tells him to stop though, and let them clean him and he lets them because he is feeling tired after such a big day.

After though, when he is back in his room and curled up in his blanket that doesn't smell like ka-san anymore in the dark where only a little light comes in from around the edge of the door he looks at his hands and one of them is still red.

He didn't see that before and he wonders, _'did they forget to clean my hands?'_

He rubs at it with his other hand and it doesn't wipe away so it isn't wet, but he scratches at it and it doesn't flake up so it isn't dry either. He digs his fingernails into his palm until his own red comes out and spills over the red that is already there and peels his skin away but underneath it is still red. He doesn't really understand what it is or why or how, but he likes that the red seems to be permanent, just like he wanted. He smiles to himself, thinking that maybe now he really is just like sensei.

***  
***

It was pure luck that Kisuke overheard the messenger, he so rarely joined the older captains for drinks. Luck, or more accurately fate. Of course fate would align circumstance in just such a way to arrange a meeting of two soulmates. How else would they meet at all, the entire system was a series of manipulated moments and responses to craft certain outcomes.

He was just entering the eating establishment when a messenger had come rushing in, and spotting the two captains already seated had asked them in a panic if they knew where Shiba-taicho was. Apparently the man had already been to the tenth division and Shiba-taicho had already left. When Kyōraku-taicho and Ukitake-taicho had professed themselves ignorant of their fellow's whereabouts the messenger had become frantic and with Kyōraku-taicho's offer of a drink and Ukitake-taicho's good-natured but calculated insistence that the man sit down at their table and take a moment to breathe a story had emerged.

The messenger gulped down the saki he was offered strait from the bottle and in such a hurry that some spilled down his chin. Kisuke approached the table and watched the man with a false sense of calm to mask his curiosity as he stood behind an empty chair, one hand resting on the back as if he was waiting to join the table. The messenger breathed in a great gulp of air and then revealed to the shocked captains the reason for his urgency.

“The boy! He is a monster! The clan cannot contain him! I was sent to fetch Shiba-taicho, he is the only one the boy will listen to. It has never been this bad before, we only thought- but he- he is killing them! He escapes every kido trap that has been tried and even those with a blade cannot slow him down! I have to find Shiba-taicho and bring him back to the clan compound before the massacre claims the entire clan!” The man babbled desperately, shocking all three captains.

_ 'Members of the Shiba clan are being killed? Right now?'_ Kisuke's thoughts begin to race, _'and really, by a child? The Shiba clan in particular has always been known to produce the greatest number of offspring with above average reiryoku...'_

Kyōraku-taicho and Ukitake-taicho stood immediately, concerned and grim. “If you cannot find Shiba-taicho then we will assist any way we can, if you could grant us permission to interfere in your clan's affairs?” Ukitake-taicho asked the man kindly.

The messenger blinked at him and then jumped up in relief, bowing to the kind captain. “Yes! Of course, I will let you into the compound myself, I am sure it will be acceptable! If only you can stop the monster!” He turned and the captains followed him toward the exit as Kyōraku-taicho tossed coin down for the drinks they had already consumed.

As they neared the door the messenger mumbled more to himself than to the two captains. “I only wish we had been more prepared, what else should we have expected when the mark of blood is stained indelibly on the boy's hand?”

Kisuke was still thinking over the man's story and hadn't moved to follow them, but the remark made his eyes widen and his skin prickle, hair raising on the back of his neck. He felt frozen, and both hot and cold at the same time, his hand clenched on the back of the chair. Blood, on the boy's hand. A permanent mark. A _soulmark_.

The chance that it was a coincidence was too small to believe. Far more likely that the boy, if the messenger had been accurate and truthful in his accounting, with a bloodstain soulmark on his hand was in fact the child that Kisuke had so wronged. The boy that was Kisuke's own responsibility, not Kyōraku-taicho or Ukitake-taicho's. Not even Shiba-taicho's, though clearly the boy must be a member of the Shiba clan, of some relation to Shiba Isshin if the man's words would be enough to control the boy.

Kisuke stepped away from the empty table and made his own way from the crowded building, mapping out the best route from which to approach the Shiba compound. Better if he would arrive before any of the other captains did. For whatever there was to see, for whatever needed to be done.

***

The boy couldn't have been more than a hundred years old. He was covered in blood, an insane grin of excitement stretched across his face as he expertly severed a full-grown man's arm. Even with lives on the line Kyōraku and Ukitake froze just for a moment at the sight of such a young soul at the center of so much carnage. It seemed as though the whole house had already been butchered.

They stood at the edge of a large garden, while across the distance broken bodies littered the ground. Trampled plants and discarded weapons made the scene look like a battlefield, and both captains couldn't help but believe the Shiba messenger's description of the boy as a monster. He was finding such pleasure in killing every man that approached him that no matter what age he appeared he couldn't really be seen as anything else.

Wooden doors leading to the house were left gaping open where the clansmen had raced outside, and even many women had been left dead in the grass. There were dozens of bodies, and enough pieces that an accurate count couldn't really be made, but there were still a number of figures surrounding the boy.

Jūshirō's heart hurt at the sight of a man leaping towards the boy, and the boy swiftly dodging the attack as though it was nothing, deftly slipping under the man's guard and shoving a tanto with enough strength that when he ripped it upwards from hip to chest the man's guts spilled out and he fell to the grass screaming. The fresh splash of blood slapped against the boy's front and he _laughed_ as he turned to his next attacker. Jūshirō was frozen at the sight of the boy's face, he looked so much like Shiba Kaien, a kind young member of his own thirteenth division. 

Shunsui roughly shoved down any part of himself that tried to tell him this was a child as he observed the way the small figure dodged the well practiced swing of a zanpakutō. The small body flowed through its movements with practiced skill, and Shunsui knew that the Shiba would be unable to pull back his guard before the grinning figure landed a killing blow. This 'monster' was _well_ trained and Shunsui would dearly like to know who would teach such a young child to kill in this manner.

Regardless of whatever mystery training the killer had experienced, this could not be allowed to continue. Shunsui knew that his oldest friend and dearest partner would hesitate to kill the boy himself, so Shunsui prepared himself to draw his own blades and resigned himself to carry this burden in Jūshirō's stead.

Before Shunsui could draw he was startled when, out of nowhere and courtesy of an expert shunpo, Urahara-taicho appeared just feet away from the boy. The newest captain's reiatsu was bound tightly enough that neither of them had noticed his presence until he appeared within the melee. The Shiba's around them startled and the small figure in their midst took the opportunity to slice halfway through one sword arm and deliver a reiatsu enhanced blow to a chest that drove a man back ten feet before he coughed blood and fell to his knees. It took all of a second to land both blows.

The boy spun to reevaluate his opponents and caught sight of Urahara-taicho, and even from a distance Shunsui could see from the way the small figure yanked his blade up and changed his stance that the boy knew this new arrival would be a real challenger for him. A threat, when compared to the almost helpless Shiba's he had been killing until now. The mad grin never faltered, a gleam of white in the darkness. Even outmatched the boy was confident.

Jūshirō knew that Shunsui was prepared to kill the boy himself if it was necessary, though he was waiting to see Urahara-taicho's next move. Jūshirō's own surprise at the newest captain's arrival wasn't enough to make him _curious_ per se, the horrible nature of this tragedy left no room in him for such a feeling, but he could understand that they had yet to see Urahara-taicho in any sort of combat and even a brief evaluation of him could be valuable in a number of ways. He himself was surprised that Urahara-taicho had yet to draw his zanpakutō. For a captain the boy could surely be of little threat, and even though it seemed a cruel waste to cut the boy down, the bodies laid before them were enough evidence of the necessity for all of them.

Urahara-taicho seemed to be observing the boy though, none of the light humored and nervous man they were used to seeing present now. Jūshirō wondered if this was the expression the man wore when he was at work in his Research and Development Institute.

_ 'Is he observing the boy like he does an experiment?'_ Jūshirō wondered. It was certainly a different side of the man that Jūshirō and Shunsui hadn't seen before.

The boy had yet to move, despite his feral actions and the clear excitement he was experiencing he seemed to be observing Urahara-taicho in turn. The moment Urahara-taicho shifted his stance the boy did the same, not to a similar stance, not in mirror but as though he had already decided how he would counter if the captain moved. Jūshirō and Shunsui were confused when Urahara-taicho froze and then tilted his head minutely, as though he was acknowledging the boy's move and thinking fast for a response.

Urahara-taicho shifted again, completely out of his first stance and into another. The boy did the same, beginning to move only a moment behind the captain and they both stepped into forms that their observers were unfamiliar with. Shunsui and Jūshirō watched as this process repeated several times, almost like a dance, only a loose mock of a fight. The Shiba's that were still on their feet were watching nervously, growing more and more tense as time passed and Shunsui wondered if one of them would try to attack the boy from behind while he was focused on Urahara-taicho.

Finally it seemed as though Urahara-taicho came to a decision on how he would like to proceed, but he never reached for his zanpakutō. Instead his left hand went to his right and then he stripped off the white gloves that he wore every day, dropping them carelessly to the bloody mud at his feet. The captains had never seen him without them, and Jūshirō wondered if perhaps there was something to that, if perhaps Urahara-taicho was planning some kind of kidō attack. Urahara-taicho took a step forward and with his head tilted to the side in a mirror of captain's the boy did the same.

Shunsui was shocked when Urahara-taicho slowly raised his right hand, palm facing outward. The boy took another step toward Urahara-taicho and then froze, staring at the hand outstretched before him. The boy's expression changed from mad bloodlust to a strange perplexed look, and the arm holding his blade ready dropped to the boy's side. Urahara-taicho made no move, only watching carefully as the boy slowly crept close enough to reach out and tentatively touch the fingers of his left hand to Urahara's right palm.

Shunsui froze and Jūshirō gasped when suddenly the blade fell to the ground and the boy looked at his own now upturned right palm, then held it up beside Urahara's own. They weren't close enough to hear the words that the boy was mumbling as he looked back and forth, back and forth between their hands. The boy shuffled closer to Urahara and it looked like he was nuzzling his nose against Urahara's palm like an animal, when suddenly Urahara's left hand darted in against the boy's neck and the small body went limp, falling into his arms as Urahara went to his knees to catch him _gently_.

Urahara seemed to be completely oblivious to the many eyes of the captains and the Shiba clan watching him as he cradled the still body in a close embrace, right arm wrapped around the boy's torso and his left hand curled around the bright shock of orange hair, the boy's head pressed softly against his chest. As though he was precious to Urahara, almost like he didn't want to let the boy go. Urahara was looking down at the body with an expression of sorrow and perhaps even guilt, but his feelings were clear enough to Shunsui and Jūshirō, Urahara was in pain, because this boy's palm had born the same mark as the one on Urahara's own. This boy was Urahara's soulmate, and now Jūshirō and Shunsui understood that long ago remark Urahara had left them with the day he had been promoted to captain. Of course the man had known, had seen in the boy's memories, what kind of person the boy was. He had known that this carnage was coming in the boy's future. There must have been signs and he had known what he, or someone, would have to do someday.

_ 'Won't that be a terrible day?'_ He had told them outside the first division gates, and yes, yes it was.

A terrible day when a man had to kill his own soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> Aiko-chan and Raigou-san are random OC's.


End file.
